Welcome

A school report card is available for the Elementary and Junior-Senior high school.  Click on the links below.

Prairie Elementary School

Prairie Junior Senior High School

Enrollment by grade – quarterly

Our Mission

We will create, deliver and responsibly manage opportunities for all children to learn every day and become contributing citizens. These opportunities will be developed in partnership with the community and will be provided in a safe and supportive environment.

Our Motto

Every Student Learning Every Day

Our Values

Respect, Dignity, Honesty, Responsibility and Teamwork

Awards

Prairie Jr/Sr High a 5 Star School
Prairie Elementary a 4 Star School
Distinguished Elementary School
NATIONAL BLUE RIBBON SCHOOL OF EXCELLENCE 2014

Superintendent’s Welcome to School Year 2024-2025

This is year #4 as the Cottonwood School District Superintendent.  The first 3 years have gone by very fast and I am looking forward to kicking off another year.

The start of the 2024-2025 school year has arrived.  Numerous teachers and have been in and out of building for the past couple of weeks, but the first official contract day for staff is Wednesday August 28, 2024 for district meetings.

Cottonwood School District’s enrollment leading up to the first day of school is currently at 438 students.  Last year at this time we had 441 students enrolled.  We currently have 42 open enrollment students from other districts.  We did not add anyone new for open enrollment this year.

Our fall sports seasons kicked off on Monday August 12th with 32 volleyball players hitting the court and 19 football players hitting the field, and 17 cross county players hitting the training course.  Jr. High football hands out gear on Tuesday, August 27th and first practice is Wednesday, August 28th.  Jr. High volleyball starts their season the first day of school which is Tuesday, September 3rd after school at the elementary school.  First high school volleyball action is a jamboree at home on Tuesday, August 27th, first league game is a home game with Logos on Thursday, August 29th.  First football game is @ Deary on Friday, August 30th.  First Cross Country action is Wednesday, September 4th @ Moose Creek Invitational.  Good luck to all our athletes this Fall!  Student organizations BPA, HOSA, Prairie League and Knowledge Bowl will begin their meetings when the school year starts.  

Open House at the elementary school is planned for Wednesday, August 28th from 4:30 – 6:30.  We will provide burgers, hot dogs and chips for students and parents as they drop off their supplies in their new classrooms.

Prairie is offering numerous dual credit and IDLA courses again this year.  We have a great partnership with LCSC and appreciate the dedication our teachers show by giving our students the opportunity to accrue numerous college credits before they graduate high school.  702 credits earned in 2023-2024 compared to 540 credits earned during the 2022-2023 school year.  This saved the students $338,000 in 2023-2024 compared to $270,000 in 2022-2023.  The numbers keep increasing each year! We look forward to continuing this opportunity for all of our students.

School bus drivers – we are doing better this year compared to last year as we added a new route driver mid-year last year (Kenneth Cox) and hired another route driver for the upcoming school year (Bambi Woolford, Bambi is the daughter of Dewey and Linda Elliott, previous Keutervillle Pub and Grub owners).  If you are interested in becoming certified contact Dave Shears (shearsd@sd242.org) as he can train drivers.  Bus routes and activity drivers are very important to our community.  Thank you in advance for anyone interested!

We welcome new staff members to the district this year

Allison Pape – 4th grade teacher – Allison was born in Grangeville and grew up in a farming community in Eastern Washington.  She used to visit her grandparents in Fenn and would have never imagined returning to Idaho to live on the farm.  She graduated from Concordia University in August, Texas, started teaching, and then along came her own family.  Allison and her husband, Damian have three children: Laramie (11), Emberlyn (8) and Gentry (6).  She enjoys camping, hiking, exploring the outdoors, watching her kids play sports, and reading.  She is looking forward to starting her 9th year as a teacher and getting involved in the community!  Welcome Allison!

Faith Bieler – Prairie Jr/Sr High School paraprofessional.  Faith grew up in Grangeville and attended Grangeville High School.  After graduation, she went to attend the University of Idaho and the University of Montana where she received her Bachelor’s degree in Biology.  Since that time she has worked with all ages of kids and also worked at the Monastery of St. Gertrude’s.  She loves to travel, spend time with family, and go to baseball games! Welcome Faith!

Lisa Hasselstrom – Prairie Jr/Sr High School administrative assistant.  Lisa Hasselstrom is married to the “best guy in the world” Ryan (who also happens to teach and coach for Prairie High School.  Ryan and Lisa met at a family reunion, you can ask her about that at a later time!  They have 3 children who all graduated from Prairie High School. Sydney (27)-married to Calin Hinkelman, Ryan (25) and Brody (20).  They also have an awesome grandson Cooper who is almost 2 years old.  She spent most of her younger adult life in Las Vegas working at UNLV until moving to Idaho in 2002.  She has worked mainly at St. Mary’s Hospital and Clinics for the past 15 years as a scheduler and patient access representative.  She loves to float the river in the summer….many of you here know that from experience.  She enjoys jogging and taking long walks in the woods with her husband.  Spending time with her family is the most important thing in her life.  She is not a big fan of being cold, so you will probably see the electrical bill increase as her office will have the heat on most of the time!  She is looking forward to working with the great staff and students at Prairie High School and Cottonwood School District.  Welcome Lisa!

Mattie Lustig – Prairie Jr/Sr High School librarian/sewing teacher.  Mattie was born in Cottonwood, ID.  Her parents are Bob and April Lustig and she is the third of six siblings.  She graduated from Prairie Jr/Sr High School in 2021 and went to college at the University of Idaho.  She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology this summer and is excited to be back in Cottonwood.  THis summer she worked for her dad on their family farm as well as a seasonal Archaeology Tech position with the Nez Perce Tribe.  Some of her hobbies, she enjoys riding horses, swimming, hiking, sewing, skiing/snowboarding, and reading.  She also started the art of bookbinding.  Welcome Mattie!

Madison Flick – Prairie Jr/Sr High School Ag Teacher.  Madison was raised in Nipomo, California where she graduated high school in 2019.  She then attended Allan Hancock college to achieve her Associates degree and in 2021 transferred to Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana where she graduated with her Bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Education.  This past summer she moved to Hayden, Idaho for the summer and decided to get her Idaho Teaching license.  Growing up she was involved in both 4-H and FFA. She is super excited to start the year!  Welcome Madison!

Linda Kaschmitter – Prairie Elementary School cook.  Linda has lived in Cottonwood for 47 years and lived for a 4 year stint in Lewiston.  She attended grades 6-12 in Craigmont and graduated from Highland High School.  She got her first job at the age of 12 at the Coffee Shop in Craigmont.  She has 3 grown children who all graduated from Prairie High School.  She has 8 grandchildren.  She enjoys outdoors, camping, fishing, relaxing around the fire, reading and exploring what Idaho has to offer.  Welcome Linda!

We had current staff members move to new positions for the 2024-2025 school year.  Debbie Schmidt is moving from the elementary school kitchen to a paraprofessional position at the elementary school.  Madison Shears is moving from her paraprofessional position at the high school to an elementary school paraprofessional position.

The elementary school offered a summer “camp” program for elementary students in June and July.  3 days a week for 3 weeks.  This was facilitated by Becky Higgins and her summer camp help consisted of Cami Shears, Megan Rambo, Vikki Riener, Megan Frei and Olivia Arnzen.  There were 31 students enrolled with a 85% attendance rate.  Attendance wasn’t as good in years past, due to other summer activities scheduled at the same time.  All the students did well in the program.  Thank you to these ladies for their hard work and taking time out of their summer to assist these students.

Projects throughout the summer – Prairie Elementary School was fortunate enough to be awarded a $105,000 grant through the Securing Our Future Rural School grant. Concept Construction enclosed the breezeway that connects our cafeteria in the main building to our K-1 building this summer.  This was the only spot on the elementary campus that was not enclosed and not secure with doors being unlocked during the day.  This will help with security for the elementary school and weather issues during the winter months.  The elementary school is now all under one roof and completely secured.

Rick Forsmann and Sydney Shears painted the entire elementary school this past June.  They had a few helpers throughout the process.  Nita Lorentz, Kristen Wemhoff, Trenton Lorentz and Jerry Richardson helped with the finish work and also painted the K-1 building.  Dave Shears and myself helped for a few hours, but Rick and Sydney rocked the majority of the project.  Jack Duman painted the new doors on the lower classroom recess doors.  Rick and Sydney install the new doors.  It was a major upgrade as the old doors would not shut due to their age and wear and tear.  It looks like a new building with the fresh paint!

The high school, elementary and auxiliary gym floors were refinished this summer and are ready for the upcoming sport seasons.  They turned out great.

If any community members are interested in being on an email list for the school, please contact Jennifer Riener at the elementary school rienerj@sd242.org or Matt Elven at the Jr/Sr High School elven@sd242.org

We plan to use the SchoolMessenger notification system again this year.  This is a mass email, text, phone call if there is a district emergency, school closure and any other pertinent information that we may need to get out to a large group of people.  With all technology, there are kinks, but we hope that we can work with families to update the proper contact information so they are receiving these messages.

We look forward to another great year.  We hope you all have a fantastic 2024-2025 school year!

Go Pirates!

Jon Rehder

Superintendent